{"id":738111,"date":"2026-06-15T13:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738111\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:11:12","slug":"excitement-builds-as-season-openers-draw-nearer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738111\/","title":{"rendered":"Excitement builds as season openers draw nearer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>15 Jun 2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Excitement builds as season openers draw nearer\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"ArticleHero_image__RqLNq\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781529070_40_image.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Springboks<\/p>\n<p>The excitement for the week ahead with the Springboks facing the Barbarians and the SA \u2018A\u2019 team taking on Zimbabwe was palpable in the national camp on Monday as Bok assistant coach Deon Davids and loose forward Paul de Villiers addressed the media at their first media conference of the week in Johannesburg, and both said they are looking forward to the challenge ahead.<a class=\"Shop_btnYellow__EsqCB\" href=\"\"\/><a class=\"Shop_btnDark__98lz6\" href=\"\"\/><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Ficons%2Farrow-left.svg&amp;w=96&amp;q=75\"\/><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Ficons%2Farrow-right.svg&amp;w=96&amp;q=75\"\/><img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fvectors%2FVector1.svg&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75\"\/><img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fvectors%2FVector2.svg&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75\"\/><img alt=\"Springboks\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"350\" height=\"294\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"Newsletter_logo__0QikA\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2FSpringboks-logo.svg&amp;w=750&amp;q=75\"\/><a href=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"saru-logo\" width=\"220\" height=\"185\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"footer-logo\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/springboks.rugby\/_next\/image?url=%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Flogo.svg&amp;w=640&amp;q=75\"\/><\/a>\u00a9 2026 SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY \u00a0|\u00a0 PICTURES \u00a9 GALLO IMAGESBack to Top<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"15 Jun 2026 Springboks The excitement for the week ahead with the Springboks facing the Barbarians and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-738111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}